Flash Crash: Wife Swapping in the Suburbs? Nah, Algo Trading

LONDON – England – Forget about wife swapping in the suburbs, the latest craze is algo trading where spoof orders are entered then retracted in milliseconds resulting in price fluctuations in the stock market allowing algo traders to enter in large orders to make millions.

High frequency trading is no biggie, it’s been going on for years. Gone are the days of looking at the fundamentals or charts of indices/companies, instead, the manipulated markets are rife with fakery and spoofing.

Nav Sarao, dubbed the Hound of Hounslow is one such example. Operating from a semi in the suburbs, he was caught because his fake orders caused the flash crash of 2010 when the Dow dropped 1000 points in a few seconds.

These days the markets rarely mirror reality but are gamed by millions of algo traders in banks, in suburban houses, in sheds, wherever. It’s good to know that the pension funds and assorted other stuff you own is all linked to the markets because the manipulated unnatural movements could literally go anywhere in milliseconds.

Next time you walk down some drab dreary suburb, just think to yourself of the assortment of atrocities, financial or wife related that are going on.